Without limiting the invention, its background is described in connection with local telephone services and providers of such services. In general, the telecommunications industry has evolved into a highly competitive and sophisticated network of equipment manufacturers and service providers. Since the early 1980s, the industry has seen a shift from pure analog techniques over copper wire to digital techniques over optical fiber. Today, customers can choose from a large array of consumer telecommunications services including local and long distance calling, 800 and 900 calling accounts, TCP/IP (i.e. the "Internet") and others.
Typically, a telecommunications customer obtains access to such services by establishing an account with a service provider. The service provider, in turn, will assign to the customer a telephone number for inbound calls or provide the customer with a dial-up number for outbound calls. For example, the number can be the local telephone number where the customer can be reached such as a home or business. The number can also be the local dial-in to an automated system for a switched connection to a network element such as a domain server. Other examples include, but are not limited to, a customer's facsimile machine, cell phone number or voice mail.
At the same time industry deregulation has brought about the entry of multiple service providers within single geographic regions. In addition to competition, the number and variety of telecommunications services continues to increase. Typically, a category of service is tied to a single unique number so that any one customer may consume a host of numbers to accommodate a host of services. Thus, a common situation has evolved wherein a single customer will have a home number, an office number, a facsimile machine number, a cell phone number, an Internet account number and possibly others.
Today's service providers employ advanced information technology systems using sophisticated equipment such as routers, switches and digital cross-connects. At a minimum, the equipment must be configured to ensure calls reach their destination regardless of the service provider. While standards and communications protocols have been adopted by the industry, cooperation amongst service providers has been critical to implementing a reliable network. Today, a customer can place a clear noise free call from almost anywhere in the world.
The Public Switched Telephone Network ("PSTN") comprises the telecommunications backbone for most voice/data traffic in the world. For most local and long distance telephone calls a local telephone company acts as a local entry point to the PSTN. Typically, a Local Routing Number ("LRN") is used to route the call from a point of origination to a point of destination on the PSTN. This is true regardless of who is servicing the call at either point.
This infrastructure, however, does not always accommodate a change in the service needs of an end customer. For example, often a customer desires to switch service providers to take advantage of a more attractive rate plan. The problem lies in that the customer is not guaranteed to maintain the same local number even if the customer remains at the same location. Thus, until the present invention, there was no way to port a customer's number from one service provider to another within the same local region.
In short, as competition for communications services has grown so has the value attached to a customer's telephone number. At present, call routing is based on a number associated with the switch used to handle the local call. Moreover, service providers have not developed a means for reliable call routing when a switch from one provider to another is made. Until the present invention, the only solution was to assign a new telephone number not already in use by another customer.
While long distance carriers have enacted portability solutions on a regional or even national basis for certain classes of services, such as 800 and 900 accounts, the local portability problem has not, until the present invention, been squarely addressed. Moreover, prior art efforts at local number portability have not been widespread. For example, an industry task force was formed, pursuant to the Illinois Commerce Commission Order on Customers First Plan (Docket 94-0096 dated Apr. 7, 1995), to develop a permanent number portability solution for Illinois. While the task force made progress in defining the problem and resolving certain issues related to implementing local number portability, it did not resolve the problem on a nationwide basis. Nor did the commission establish the hardware and software interfaces required to implement a nationwide portability solution.
Thus, a need exists for a system and method of achieving local number portability on a nationwide basis. A system and method of sharing a single telephone number over different local exchange carriers would fill a void not presently addressed by the prior art.